At the time of shooting In My Blood It Runs, Dujuan Hoosan was just 10 years old, but he could see how the education system did not value his cultural knowledge.Dujuan is a happy Arrernte and Garrwa kid who lives in Hidden Valley town camp in Alice Springs. He also has healing powers; a present his grandpa handed down to him.”It’s my task to look after the people,” he says in the film.Throughout the
film we see Dujuan use his hands to heal his family members.
In one scene, his aunt asks him to heal her while she remains in a hospital bed with a leg wound.But we also see Dujuan struggle with school attendance– a difficulty numerous Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander kids deal with across the county.The Australian Institute of Health and Well-being reports that main school participation rates for Native students”did not improve between 2014 and 2018 and they stayed below the rate for non-Indigenous trainees”. By following Dujuan we can learn why this is a difficulty for young Native kids and Native households.’I’m a bush kid’Dujuan can
speak 3 languages but fights with reading and writing at school.”If you finish primary school and then complete high school, then you find out. But I’m a bush kid, “he stated.”I was born a little Aboriginal kid. That implies that I have a memory, a memory of Aboriginal individuals. In my blood it runs.” Dujuan is required to gain from 2 various understanding systems
, as his granny Carol Turner said:”White people inform our kids in the method they want them to be educated.
“< img alt= "An older Aboriginal female, Carol Turner, looking out on the desert landscape in In My Blood It Runs"
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https://www.abc.net.au/cm/rimage/11979720-4×3-xlarge.png?v=3″data-sizes =”100vw “>” But I desire them to discover their language so they can bring on their language.
I want my kids to mature finding out in
both ways.”While he knows some of his ancestors’native tongues, Dujuan needs to learn and speak in English at school. This is something he wishes to alter. In 2015, Dujuan became the youngest individual ever to deal with the Human being Rights Council at the United Nations
in Geneva.”I want my school to be run by Aboriginal people,” he informed the council.
“I want my future to be on land with strong language and culture.”
< h2 class ="_ 1LI2A _ 3_H8z SelAj _ 1t9H3 ZPXNE lxkD -mSYxO age8P "data-component="Heading"> A broken education system Hayley McQuire, a Darumbal and South Sea Islander female, is the co-founder and national planner of the National Indigenous Youth Education Coalition.She stated the union is reflective of young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander individuals who are dedicated to asserting Indigenous rights to education as part of the UN declaration of rights for Native individuals.
“Part of that is that we can self-determine and self-govern what our education system is,”she stated. Jane Vadiveloo is the founding president of Kid’s Ground and was also an adviser for In My Blood It Runs.Children’s Ground is a First Nations-led organisation that is deeply rooted in Native communities.
“Culture is right through everything we do,” Ms Vadiveloo said.Ms Vadiveloo
also sees direct how Native kids struggle to find out in a Western education system.
“A huge challenge they deal with is a system that doesn’t speak their language or culture, and doesn’t see their strengths,” she said.
” [The system] sees them through a deficit lens rather than a lens of cultural strength, durability and understanding.”
So how can we change this? Ms McQuire said Australia’s education design is one that”came out of the commercial transformation and was everything about preparing individuals to work in factories, overlayed with 20th-century teaching practices attempting to inform 21st-century kids”.
She and the National Indigenous Youth Education Coalition think one way to change the education system is to listen to our young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander individuals.
“Our youths are never inquired about the type of education they would like or asked if they feel culturally safe in [their] discovering environment,” Ms McQuire said.
” We truly need to believe critically about how we educate, what we teach, and how we teach it.”However she also said it is much larger than simply changing the curriculum.She stated Indigenous kids required to be taught material that was reflective of them and where they can see themselves, particularly in the subject of history.
“Aboriginal children don’t need to be fixed, and Dujuan’s an excellent example of that,” Ms Vadiveloo said.
“Their sparkle and their intelligence and understanding require to be understood, respected and held up in our systems. Whether it’s education, health, economies or any other systems.”
Community-driven options Throughout her career, Ms Vadiveloo has seen how programs can be successful if they are produced by Indigenous individuals for Indigenous people.
“When the services are driven by neighborhood … they own it, they hold it, they drive it, it’s a dramatic modification,” she said.And if there are to be systemic reforms that will operate in education, Ms McQuire wants the design of that structure put” back in the hands of our mob “.”We have numerous incredible Aboriginal educators that are out there, it’s not like we’re beginning from ground no,”she stated.< h2 class ="_ 1LI2A _ 3_H8z SelAj _ 1t9H3 ZPXNE lxkD-mSYxO age8P" data-component="Heading "> Educate yourself on your regional history To really help Indigenous kids and neighborhoods attain real change, both Ms Vadiveloo and Ms McQuire advise discovering about your local history. “I think what non-Indigenous people can do as a truly standard step is to actually know and comprehend the local history of the
land that they inhabit,”she said.”And identify that land has been looked after and took care of by generations of Very first Nations individuals.” We’ve established our own systems of knowing and educating and have actually sustained that practice for thousands of years.
“That’s a worth that Australia, in general, has actually simply not tapped into or acknowledged.”Ms Vadiveloo suggests as a country,
we need to acknowledge the past and confront our historical facts.”And the next step then is to stroll together in a shared identity and commemorate the culture of these lands, “she said.You can view In My Blood It Runs on ABC iview here.
